Enter the Silence, a meditation

I will sometimes have a theme running through the different phases of my life, and that theme will be connected or inspired by a particular author’s work. Wendell Berry, for instance, began my semester and ushered in moments of reflection, gratitude, and a quiet presence. I immersed myself in his essays and poems whenever I could, wrote a few of mine, and felt myself called to meditate on the goodness of the earth. I didn’t like it when I was pulled out of these ruminations by life as we know it, summoning attention towards its other facets.

I don’t remember how Berry weaved into John O’Donohue. Perhaps, it was after I visited On Being site, still with Berry on my mind, only to stumble into the voice and works of John O’Donohue. At the time, I also happened to be moving from an apartment to a house near the woods, where I have beheld startling sunrises and bears.

A poet friend of mine who lives in Scotland sees my bear pictures and informs me of the ongoing discussion among poet friends to build a bear sculpture in Dunbar, in honor of John Muir, the Scottish-American naturalist. The bear would be “symbolic of his travels through America’s wild places.” At that moment I recall my thrill when I discovered Muir’s books. I was living in Colorado, going into the mountains as often as I could. I pause to reflect on what the three male voices might be whispering to me. I wonder where the female voices are. I know they exist but I do not know why they do not come to me compellingly, in moments like this, especially when the subject at hand is nature, the wilderness and fertility of the woods, the lushness and largeness of Mama Bear.. .

With silent marvel and loud joy, I take my eyes off the bears, look at my feet and realize with new awareness that I am here, truly here, and for a while nothing else matters. 

On this Sunday morning, the sky is the bluest of blue, the air sweet and brisk like Honeycrisp apples. Light glints through the trees and there’s the unheard sound of falling leaves as though an invisible hand strikes them off. The sun gets stronger, braver, determined to bless us once more with warmth. I am here and nothing else matters. I hold that thought until it disappears. Until, I too, disappear, or perhaps, merge with my surrounds. In the briefest moment that simultaneously feels like a new permanent, I am oblivious of my self. I am not even a raindrop. I have dissolved into nothing.

The crack of a twig brings me back to this life and there’s a squirrel. Cheeks full of nuts, its hands and feet scratch the ground hurriedly, eager to bury its treasure and then seek more. I send a prayer that this squirrel will be blest with the gift of remembrance. That when the harshness of winter comes, it will recall where all its food is hidden. I enter my kitchen and make a pot of Indian tea, sit in the silence well knowing that, for a little while, my being in it matters.